


TRC Month

by Imtoolazytodoanything



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: ...i guess, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Character Study, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-16 03:25:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 14,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16946088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imtoolazytodoanything/pseuds/Imtoolazytodoanything
Summary: Compilation of all the days of TRC month I managed to fill before tumblr implodes with them.





	1. (2017) 8 - Oaths and Vows

“I will…I made a promise to protect Sakura”

The words are almost too strong and determined for the tiny, damaged boy who says them. His eyes are full of desperation and fear; but they also shine with stubborn determination, born of hope of saving the most important person in his life, even if that means giving up his happiness and family. The witch will grant his wish, knowing it’s just the start of an even bigger, painful road; but her job is never to intervene, but to give people what they want. And hopefully, if all goes well, these choices will lead to a brighter future for both of these children. 

The seal meant to end the princess’ life, inevitably, activates. And the boy feels his oath being broken. From desperation comes a wish: to turn back time. The price is high, the consequences catastrophic, and all the pain and despair he will be accountable for, too much. They can’t be together, not yet, maybe not ever. But he still wishes, because he has a promise, because he won’t let her die.

*******

“Even if you were able to return all her memories back, the part about you won’t return. That’s your price”

“I will go…I won’t let Sakura die!”

The boy is not the one who came to the witch’s shop years ago and at the same time he is. He’s a clone of that determined little boy, and it shows in the way he clings to the princess’ body, how it just takes one look at her face to make the choice that will shatter his own happiness. His oath mirrors the one made by his real self, in a sad repetition of fate.

“Who are you?” The question, the eyes who look at him like an stranger, feel like knives straight to his heart. But he smiles nevertheless; because she’s alive, but lost and with her soul missing, only a shadow of the person he knew; and she needs him to be strong right now. The price for his promise is too high once again, they’re still together in body, but it feels like they’re miles apart.

*******

“I will surely be punished, because I did all this….but even so, I want to get back the heart you’ve lost, Syaoran-kun”

Her body is soaked in blood, her damaged leg sends painful aches all over her body, and her feet ache for the acid she's walking on. But she does not falter in her resolve. No matter the price, or that her success will only cause that man's plans to advance further. She owes him that, and she will get him back.

His sword is on her chest the next time they meet. She’s melting away and her confession is being cut down again. But his eyes look at her with pure horror and fear. It hurts to see him like this, but at the very least, those are not the eyes of a person without a heart. She’s been successful in the worst way possible. He holds him until they depart again, hoping he will see him again, in much better circumstances.

*******

“With this power, I swear I will find the way out of this loop”

“Until we can meet again, I will be waiting”

This time, it was a shared vow the one who put them apart. For the sake of their other selves, they once again sacrificed the lives they had made. They will spend a long time in this vessel, so close and yet unable to even touch, all for the sake of a still unknown outcome. A terrible price to be paid again, but for their son, for their friends from their other life and to stop that man from destroying everything they love, they will bear being separated again.

(And they know, when Fei Wang disappears, they will too. Though, their other selves would do something about that, they’re sure. They’re two versions of the same people, after all)

*****

“We will definitely meet again”

Their journey together had ended, and a new one began. In order to keep existing without altering the time and space, both of the existences that should not exist paid. To always move forward, and never stay in one place was her most precious person’s price. He will use that journey to try and give their other selves new bodies to reborn into. And she knows if she goes with him, it would just be more painful. So he starts his travel, luckily, with the rest of their companions beside him (and for that she will forever be grateful). They give each other their true names, and they make a final promise.

Hopefully, even if they can’t be together forever, they will wait for each other and cherish the moments when they meet. That’s their final vow, and they swear this one will be as free of pain as possible.


	2. (2017) Day 10 - Syaosaku

Their visits where always unexpected and routine-breaking, and that was what Sakura loved the most about them.

It was a bit unbearable, the first couple of times. Not being able to plan ahead or to think with anticipation of how to make the best of their limited, sacred time together. She fully understood the reasons, and knew this was the only way for Syaoran to keep existing the way he was (thinking about how he must feel with the burdens he carries, it still keeps her awake some nights). But still, having so little control over their time together used to send an empty feeling down her stomach.

Her point of view started to change after the third time. She had been walking down the city ‘s main market, taking account of the requests of her people and giving her services as a priestess; when a white light shined down on the market. The rest happened very quickly for both the townspeople and her to process, but next thing she knew, Syaoran was in front of her, knees and hands on the floor and groaning.

She had him locked on a thigh hug before he had time to realize anything. 

“Wha–” he mumbles, confused and frozen under her arms. She broke the hug to look at him, and the way his eyes lighted up with joy at the sight of her is engraved in her memory. They hug again, and kiss and giggle for who knows how long. There are tears in both their eyes when they finally break apart, and she remembers to take a look at the rest of the picture. Fai and Mokona are watching them with big smiles and even Kurogane is showing the littlest hint of a smirk. She can feel her cheeks reddening, and a glance at Syaoran confirms his’ are burning too. She laughs again and decides is their turn to get tackled into a hug.

(”How indecent,” Touya would tease her later. “The crown princess, lying around with estrange travelers on the market in broad daylight” But he knew they had explained things and had paid for everything the trio had broken on the fall. And besides, the townspeople loved their princess too much to care.)

They have a silent arrangement for their visits, where the first hours of the day are for the 5 of them. They would share stories at little picnics on the kingdom’s outskirts or go on long walks through the city. But as son as the sun started to go down, Fai, Kurogane and Mokona would excuse themselves somehow, and Sakura and Syaoran would be left on their own.

Their moments were quiet, but the connection that came with being close to each other was one of the things Sakura longed the most. Sometimes they will just sit outside of the ruins, holding hands and watching the stars until late in the night, each other’s presence enough to fill the silence. Others, they will talk their hearts out, of happy memories, sad ones, hopes, dreams and nightmares. In the longest visits, they would have the time to do both. They would talk about their other selves, too. As they wished, more than anything, to find a way for them to share the same kind of moments they do once again.

“Nights like these…I wish it didn’t have to be like this…” Commented Syaoran, a few hours into midnight, when they were at their most open. His tone was neither biter nor sad, but a sort of tired acceptance.

“I’ve thought on a good side of all this, actually.” She answered, looking up to the star-filled sky. Syaoran just looked at her, a fond smile on his lips, like he expected nothing less from her. 

“Every morning, when I wake up, I can go through my day just with thinking of the possibility of you coming at any given time.”

And really, even with all the hardships their lives carried and the shortness of their shared time, wasn’t that uncertainty such a beautiful thing to look forward to?


	3. Rootless (Day 1 - Syaoran)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An abandoned world prompts Syaoran to think about the things he has, those he has lost, and those that were never there in the first place.

They had landed in an abandoned world. It looked like it had been a powerful civilization in its past, or at least that was the first thing Syaoran thought upon seeing the decayed but still imposing layout of what must have been a capital city in front of them.

 

After recovering from the rough landing, Mokona informed them that there was no feather in that world. Well, it appeared that there wasn’t anything in that place at all. The buildings around the city all displayed the passage of time and abandonment through cracked and dry walls, hollow windows and dusty streets. Nobody must have set foot here in almost a decade, Syaoran speculated.

Nevertheless, they decided to explore the place to see if it really was empty. There was always the possibility that groups of travelers or runaways had chosen to stay in deserted cities to start anew or hide from pursuers. And people meant food and information.

They were walking through a circular plaza around a large palace. It was composed of rectangular-shaped blocks of grass interlined by paved concrete paths. A Street fair must have worked there, if the broken stands scattered around the floor were any indication. Syaoran couldn’t help but notice the city most likely had been raided.  The signs of battle were subtle, when they were passing by the inner streets, but now that they were a few blocks away from what looked like an important building, the cracks and stains of violence were more noticeable.

Upon closer inspection, the pavement had old, dried red stains that Syaoran instantly recognized as spilled blood. He frowned, confused. If there had been a battle, where were the remains of it? Sure, blood could adhere to surfaces for extremely long periods of time, but surely it couldn’t be older than maybe a decade. Or a lot less than that, considering it was in the open, and the rain would have washed it away already otherwise…did it even rain in this world? Forget the rain, where are the corpses? Or the skeletons? Even if the winners did a splendid cleaning job, they couldn’t possible get rid of every trail.

He looked up at the palace in front of them, and noticed something he hadn’t before. The place, although still deteriorated, looked way better than any other building they had encountered up to then. The paint, windows and doors just looked a bit rusty and unattended, but they didn’t have the holes or cracks of the houses in front of it. Was the palace maintained after whatever had happened? But why? And why just-

“Syaoran-kun? Is everything alright?”

The sweet but concerned voice of Sakura cut him short on his hypothesis and he suddenly became hyperaware that he was currently crouched down on the floor, looking at a red-tainted surface and frowning like mad. Feeling heat run straight to his cheeks, he turned around, a bit too frantically for his liking, saying:

“Y-yes, nothing to worry about, Princess! I just noticed some blood marks and got tangled up in my own thoughts.”

Sakura smiled at him, bright green eyes looking at him with a fond look. Darn, he must be tomato red by now. But the Princess, just like the summer sun of the dessert, couldn’t be looked at directly without having to look away in burning awe.

“Blood? Was there a fight here? Is that why the place is empty?” She asked, her face morphing into a concerned frown. Syaoran couldn’t understand how a person could be so empathetic.

“Well, it explains why the place is so empty, but shouldn’t there be remains of it?” Fai chimed in, looking around with a curious look. Kurogane didn’t seem too interested in the subject, as he was too busy arguing with a bouncy, happy mokona about some ridiculous thing Syaoran couldn’t make out a few steps away.

“That’s what I thought, but maybe something else happened? We don’t know if the inhabitants had any sort of powers. Also, look at that palace. Doesn’t it look too well preserved in comparison of the rest of the city?  Maybe there’s more information inside…”

He trailed off, suddenly embarrassed again. He was definitely rambling about this way too much. Time to tone it down.

“Not that we need to! It’s not like there’s a feather here after all. We should probably focus on finding living people so forget I said anything.” He hurriedly corrected himself, waving his arms with a bit too much force.

“But maybe learning about this place’s history will help us in our search!” Sakura pointed out, giving him a warm, knowing smile. “Am I right? Fai-san, Kurogane-san, what do you think?”

To his surprise, and to his nerves as well, the two adults interchanged a weird look before Kurogane nodded and Fai answered happily: “Of course! You and Syaoran-kun can explore the palace while Kuro-pii and I finish with the plaza.” He finished is sentence while expertly avoiding Kurogane’s strike over the nickname. “Also, you might find information on the city, Syaoran-kun. This is similar to your archeology expeditions, isn’t it?” Fai added, winking at him.

“Archeology expedition! Mokona wants to know what Syaoran does in one of those!”Mokona exclaimed, jumping to his shoulder.

“Me too!” Sakura said, stepping closer to him. Yes, he was definitely blushing furiously.

“Well, it’s not exactly archeology…” He mumbled, trying to recover some composure.

So it was settled, and after Kurogane told them to meet them in front of the palace’s entrance once they were done (and after Fai had called him “such a responsible daddy”, promptly ending the conversation in favor of an angry chase across the plaza) Sakura, Mokona and him went inside the palace.

Just as he had thought, the place was suspiciously well-preserved. It had an architectural style similar to the buildings he had seen in the country of Jade, with wooden floors, high ceilings, diverse windows, a lot of small and big aesthetic details; and furniture which seemed to foregone all practicality in favor of superfluous designs . All of it a bit rusted and washed out, but nevertheless well maintained.  Not a single trace of blood was to be found.

The search was quite entertaining, with Sakura and Mokona excitedly asking questions like if he could tell how old the place was, or who it belonged to. It was quite hard to answer those, after all, determining the age of a building is heavily linked to the history of the place it is in, and being from another world he had no information of, he could only make guesses by looking at the strength and damage of the walls and floors.

For what he had been seeing, the place couldn’t be older than maybe a decade, and it had signs of being used recently. So whatever had happened, it happened not so long ago. That was weird, considering the rest of the city looked like it hadn’t been touched in years. Deciding that a place like this must have a library, they started the search for it. After all, what better source of information than books?

The more into the mystery he got, the more he was reminded of those expeditions he had done with his dad in what felt like ages ago. He remembered how his father used to expend hours with a broken piece of what he supposed was a window, trying to suck all the information he could out of it. How he would excitedly tell all about that day’s findings to Syaoran as they went back to whatever hotel they were staying in.

His dad asked of his input on things a lot, always wanted to hear his ideas. He was happy that he cared about what he thought and felt, but sometimes it led to conversations he would have preferred not to have.

_“You know, you don’t have to follow my footsteps.” Fujitaka had said to him once, when Syaoran was getting ready for bed._

_“Huh?”_

_"Well, you have always followed me to the excavations and helped me with research, and I know you like it. But maybe there’s something else you like to do? I notice that you love it when we visit libraries, maybe you would like to do something more grounded, like an historian?”_

_The question was friendly, and his father had smiled at him with that smile that always made him want to smile too. But despite this, Syaoran felt a lump in his throat. He didn’t like where this conversation was headed._

_Syaoran kept silent for a while, pondering in the question (something else you like to do?)Yes, he liked history, but he thought he liked archeology better. Then, he hadn’t thought about that before (what did he like to do?) Well, there was a reason he liked archeology_

_(did he know?)_

_“Archeology is fun, and more dynamic than being an historian or a librarian.” He had answered “History relies on facts, on information. Archeology is more like you need to get that information by getting your hands dirty. Is like writing history from scratch”_

_He had seen his dad talking with historians. He had seen them asking questions, gathering stories (what if there were no answers? No stories?). Archeology, for him, was different. Sometimes they will find an unknown object, or an abandoned house, or a cut tree and there was no information to work with._

_(Or a lost someone)_

_So you had to sit there, take you tools and books out and try and guess. Do your best to pinpoint what place this thing had occupied in the world. Try and find the roots of the cut tree._

_(Even if there are no books sometimes. Nothing but a bandaged eye and a terrible feeling on your chest like you’re not supposed to be there ,like you’re not supposed to be anywhere .You could only try and guess.)_

_And sometimes you couldn’t get sure answers, sometimes you had to accept that you only have a slight idea at best, so you’ll have to search somewhere else. Try and find something similar, a tree with the same trunk as the cut one._

_(And maybe sometimes there simply weren’t roots to find.)_

Finding the library took them less than 5 minutes, definitely with help of Sakura’s good luck, but what they found there left them with even more questions. When he picked up one of the books, it was completely blank. They checked one, two, ten more, but they were all the same.

“Magic must have been involved here, right?” Sakura asked, with a blank book still in her hands.

“It’s most likely. Now that I think about it, we haven’t seen any street names or signs around town either. Whoever did this wanted to wipe out this place completely.” And what a better way to do it, he thought, than blanking the books?

They could have burned the place down, leave it in ashes and dust. But whoever did this, Syaoran thought, had been smart enough and evil enough to realize there was a better option. Take the city, kill its people, and then wipe the books, take down the signs. Leave a broken carcass with nothing inside to find. ( _A cut tree trunk, with no roots_ )

( _Who had been smart and evil enough, to leave a broken carcass lying on the streets? Nameless, with a body and a soul that didn’t feel completely his own?)_

_(You could only try and guess.)_

“We have been here for quite a while now, and I don’t think we will be able to gather more information here. Kurogane-san and Fai-san must be waiting for us” He said, but in reality, the empty books had begun to make him uncomfortable.

Sakura, perceptive as always, gave him a weird look, but didn’t press the issue.  But now that he was paying attention to her, her hand griping at the hem of her skirt and her eyes fixed ahead, she looked like she wanted to leave too.

He wondered if, with her lack of memories and scattered soul, the empty books meant something deep and sad to her too.

He felt a stab in his chest at the thought. The Princess had always been an anchor for him, a reminder that although he may be an empty book, or a rootless tree trunk, having no beginning didn’t mean having no story at all. He hated that she had to feel rootless too. He hoped he could be an anchor for her now as she had been for him all these years, at least until he could help her find her roots again.

As they made their way to the exit, he supposed archeology had always been an anchor, too. It was something that he had in common with his father, something that he was good at. Something he liked to do.

( _A part of him that felt his own, even when nothing else did. Even if, sometimes, he wasn’t sure if there was a him at all.)_

When they got back to the plaza, they found that Kurogane and Fai had found some people living here after all. They had no idea of what this city had been before, but they were flying their country because of a war, and they found this place perfect to start again.

They were a small group, no more than 15 people, but they had taken a big building a few blocks over and made it their own. They even had named it after their original city. They offered them food and shelter for the night, and the group gladly took it.

They were sitting around a campfire, Kurogane and Fai were getting drunk with some of the group’s men, and Sakura was dancing with other two girls she had quickly become friends with. Syaoran was just watching, with Mokona sleeping peacefully in his lap.

He thought about these people, and about his own companions. This city had no past anymore, but if these people stayed, it would have a future. The same could be said about Sakura, who was also slowly but surely building herself again with every feather they got back, and even if her memories will be forever at least a bit empty, she could make new ones.

Hopefully, he could keep building new ones too.

( _If you were rootless, then you could just try and guess, or try and grow from there onwards.)_


	4. Power (Day 2 - Sakura)

She has always known she is powerful.

Even now, with her soul scattered in places far away from her reach, she can still  _feel_ it. Despite the missing feathers, her missing pieces, there is still magic inside of her. There is still power.  There is strength.

She can feel it when they land in natural worlds, where mankind hasn’t taken over yet. She can hear the whispers of the wind, the steadiness of the trees, the beating heart of the land. There is a strong, dignified magic in nature, and she feels humbled to be allowed to notice it, to connect with it.  

Then there is her luck. “the gods’ favorite Daughter” she has heard people call her. She knows that that is also magic. It’s the work of her instinct, which always knows which path to take, which card to pick.

She can feel and see ghosts, too. Lost souls reach out to her sometimes, and she has learnt not to be scared by them. They’re just beings in need of help and she isn’t one to turn her back on people that need her.

They’re all subtle, subconscious, sensorial powers. And since she doesn’t have much of an identity to work with now, she has been trying to trust those powers more. These instincts that always tell her to  _help, try, protect_  even when her mind hasn’t fully processed the situation yet.

The memories she recovers with each feather are precious to her, sure, but deep down she knows she can’t trust them.  They’re altered, and the worst thing is that she can’t even tell where sometimes. But her body remembers, even as her mind does not. She still hasn’t learnt to fully trust that instinct of hers yet, but she knows it is truer than any of the memories she’s recovering.

( _there are times when she looks at Syaoran and her hands ache, wanting to reach out. Her whole being wants to gravitate towards him, and although she can never really pinpoint why, she knows that her body remembers more than her mind.)_

All of them are powerful, and she knows it isn’t a coincidence. Syaoran has magic, similar to hers. She can feel it as he draws flames from his sword with ease during battles, in the accuracy of his kicks and punches.  In his determination to get back her feathers ( _she can’t remember why he would go to such lengths for her, but she feels it)_.

Kurogane doesn’t have magic of his own, yet she feels as there is raw power coming out of his sword, of his fists, every time he takes walls and people down effortlessly. It reminds her of the power of the water, the fire, and the wind. There’s a special kind of magic behind the power of the mundane.

If she concentrates enough, at any given moment, she can notice Fai’s magic, bumping inside of him, wanting to get out. Fai keeps himself closed up very carefully, but you can’t contain everything forever. She wonders what will happen, when he finally overflows.

And then, she doesn’t feel very powerful, not as things are now, but….she has seen the power her feathers hold. What they can do. And they are just bits, small pieces to a whole. Was that power inside of her, before? Can she control something like that?

Sometimes, she wonders if it’s not that the power was inside of her, but that she was a mere vessel for that power.  She can’t remember much, but she knows,  _feels_ , they’re here for a reason, and she doesn’t feel it’s a good one.

Good or not, there is still some power inside her. And now, as she walks alone through a decaying city, with acid rain and terrifying monsters; she has made her mind to use them in any way she can to help those precious to her.

The weight of the gun feels cold on her tight, but she knows she won’t hesitate if a mutant were to come in her way. She has to survive in order to get the egg, to see her friends again, to see  _Syaoran_ again.

( _He’s gone. He’s gone and she couldn’t do anything and now her heart aches so much she feels it’s going to break and she doesn’t need memories to know why she’s feeling like that)_

So she lets all her instincts guide her through corroded debris with an unwavering pace. And when a monster does appear, she picks the gun and shoots without letting her hands waver. Even as her leg is impaled, she still goes forward, and she doesn’t even feel the burning water as she makes the final steps towards the egg.

In that desolated cave, injured and with her heart aching, she makes a choice. She decides that, above all else, she wants to give Syaoran back his heart. Whatever it takes, that’s something she must do.

She feels it.She lets the ghosts of this doomed world guide her back to her family, and she crumbles in Fai’s arms as the acid rain starts to pour again.

And then, she sees it.

Another power of hers: A vision of the future, bloody and dark and more terrifying than anything she has ever seen before. Fai is going to overflow soon, and when his curse activates, he, Kurogane, this other Syaoran who, although is not hers, feels so familiar and herself are all going to…

_No._

She won’t allow that to happen, no matter what.

The feather in this world is the key to its survival, and she realizes that taking it away would be selfish, cruel. She thinks of her powers, scattered away by an evil force. She thinks of her Syaoran, who got extremely powerful after his soul was taken out his body, and of Fai, whose own power is going to turn against him soon; and realizes that yes, they’re all powerful, but is not worthy.

She leaves her feather in Tokyo. And in Infinity, when Yuuko tells her the price for stopping that future she saw is her good luck, she doesn’t even hesitate. Her power is a part of her soul, warm and good, but to save her family, to save  _him_ , she wouldn’t mind giving it all away.


	5. Mokona's Bakery Mission (Day 3- Mokona)

Mokona silently slipped from under Sakura’s arm, careful not to wake her. It was time for her Super Special Mission.

Mokona had been so excited when they landed in this world. The town they were staying in was in the middle of a food festival, and there were so many tasty things all around! She had been heartbroken when Syaoran gently explained that they couldn’t try a lot of it because they barely had any money from this world, as Kurogane and Syaoran had taken the night patrol shift at the inn they were staying in in exchange of a room.

It wasn’t for herself that she was sad though, even if she had seen some pastries she was dying to prove. After all, she didn’t  _need_  to eat, but her companions certainly did. The last world had been harsh, with food being very scarce and their rations almost diminute.

Now, she wasn’t going to  _steal_ the food. That was bad, and Kurogane would get mad at her and Syaoran and Sakura would be very distressed. Buuut the owner of that bakery some streets away from their inn owed them.

Maybe not explicitly, but the owner had been very rude when they arrived here! Sakura had accidentally fallen over his shop’s sign, and he had come out of the shop looking very mad. Sakura gently explained that it was an accident and she could help putting it back up, but the man just kept screaming at her. He demanded that they pay him for the sign’s damage. Syaoran, who was kind of mad too because this guy was just super rude, pointed out that the sign wasn’t even that damaged. That just angered him more and he threatened to call the authorities.

Then Kurogane put a hand on his shoulder and told him that he better calmed down and stopped treating Sakura badly if he knew what was good for him. The man actually calmed down at that. Kurogane is surprisingly very good at calming people down! Rude people from most worlds just take a look at him and automatically become nicer. He must irradiate friendliness despite his angry face!

They left after that, but the owner must have gotten the word out about them, because after they finished exploring and searching for a feather, not a single inn wanted to take them in! Somebody had said they were “untrustworthy” and that led to Kurogane and Syaoran offering up work almost for free.

Because of all that, Mokona felt that taking just a  _few_ things out of his kitchen was completely justified.

She got into the shop by a small open window near the main oven. She had supposed the shop was big just by looking at the fancy shopfront, but she was still surprised by the sheer amount of food there was in there. Everywhere she looked there were all kind of pastries, sandwiches, breads and cakes. She didn’t even know where to start!

A plate full of flower-shaped cookies caught her attention first. They were filled with strawberry and they looked really cute and tasty. She opened her mouth, taking a good amount of them inside her. Sakura would love these, she thought.

Since poor Sakura was the one the owner bothered the most, she made sure to pick a lot of candy, cakes and cookies she thought she would like. And then some more for Fai, who loved sweet things. Syaoran promptly came to her mind, and she remembered that he had told her once that although they were tasty, they couldn’t live off sweet because they weren’t appropriate meals.

With that in mind, she picked up some healthy-looking sandwiches and some bread. There were all types of bread there; she didn’t know what they all were so she took one of each.

Getting hungry just by seeing all that food, she started tasting some of the pastries herself. She ate some weirdly shaped chocolate candy and immediately grimaced in disgust. This chocolate was so bitter! And also it had something inside that tasted suspiciously like alcohol.

Mokona frowned; this was a crime against candy. She took a handful of them, as this atrocity sounded like the kind of candy Kurogane would like. Though she had a feeling that if only the chocolate wasn’t so bitter, Fai would be all in for an alcohol-filled candy too.

Speaking of Kurogane, she hadn’t taken much for him, mostly because the man liked sour, bitter things that were the exact opposite of what a bakery offered. Feeling guilty, she kept on searching the place looking for food for Kurogane, which led her to find a staircase leading to a second floor.

She jumped up the stairs and opened the door. She was welcomed by a room with a sofa, a table with three chairs and a small kitchen. So this must be the owner’s house. She went straight to the refrigerator, and was pleased to find the man had it stacked with sake and beer.

Finally something on Kurogane’s diet! He always drank a lot of alcohol; Mokona was starting to wonder if it was a cultural thing. Syaoran had said they needed water to survive. Maybe Kuro needed alcohol instead? It would explain why he’s never hangover. She would have to ask him once she gets back.

Just as she was taking the bottles in, the lights suddenly turned on. She got distracted, and some bottles fell to the floor.

The man screamed.

 _Oops_.

…….

Kurogane woke up with a bad feeling on his gut. But to be fair, with the companions he had gotten himself with, that happened quite often.

He looked to his right, where the mage was still sleeping face-down on the bed next to his, and discarded problem cause Nº1. He checked on the kid and the princess, both of which were also sleeping, and he suddenly realized what the problem cause was.

There was just one head missing from his mental roll call after all.

He rubbed his temple, cursing being already stressed not even five minutes after waking up. Now, Mokona was usually just right after Fai in the list of unpredictable troublemakers in this group, but she didn’t usually took off on her own, and rather preferred to just aid Fai’s bullshit for the most part. So he wasn’t really sure of where the hell she could be.

Well, this city wasn’t that big, and looked relatively magic-less, so he supposed a white talking rice bun would be easy to locate. He briefly wondered if she would have had the delicacy of at least  _trying_ not to be seen in a world with no confirmed non-human creatures, but he really doubted it. Deciding it was not a thing to worry the kids over yet, he simply woke up the mage to tell him he was going out, and set to search for the damn manjuu.

Just as he thought, it didn’t take long. While he was passing next to the shop of that asshole of yesterday, he heard the guy frantically telling a story to his costumers.

“I’m telling you! A demon was in my house last night! It was white and the size of a tennis ball with long, sharp ears. It opened its mouth and fucking  _absorbed_ everything in my fridge! White light came out of its mouth. It was terrifying!”

“Sounds like a fairy” The woman he was talking to commented, not sounding much concerned about what the man was telling her.

“Looked more like a homunculi to me! Worst of all, the thing noticed me and  _talked to me._  That white shit talked. Talked.  Told me it was payback and left through the window. Payback of what? Have I angered the gods? Am I cursed?”

Kurogane couldn’t help but snicker at that. So that’s what she was doing. Although he would have to call her out in bringing unnecessary attention to herself, he had to admit he couldn’t deny that a good revenge once in a while wasn’t all that bad, despite what Tomoyo-hime had tried to tell him for years.

He went back to the inn, realizing she must have gone back already. When he got there, he was met with a sight that made him reevaluate his previous thought.

The four of them where sitting at the table currently full of all kinds of food and sweets, Fai looking like a proud dad and the kids just looking generally confused. The little shit hadn’t just taken a few things out of that guy’s kitchen, she had  _raided_ his shop. He swore he could feel the headache coming.

“Kurogane is back! Mokona went to get some things earlier and now we have a lot of food!” The white bun exclaimed, seemingly unaware of the dry look he was giving her.

“Uh, Mokona, where did you get all this food?” Syaoran asked, already paling at the concept of possible law-breaking.

“Mokona went back to the rude man’s shop from yesterday, and he said he was really sorry and wanted to make up for it!” She answered, with the most happy and innocent voice. She would be a really good liar if she knew how to make up better arguments, Kurogane thought.

 “Manjuu…” He started, but was immediately cut off with a bottle held close to his face.

“Mokona got Kurogane alcohol because Mokona knows how much you like it! Mokona also got some very bitter things for you to eat!”

Kurogane took the bottle in his hand, and then looked at Syaoran and Sakura who were currently eating the first full meal they had in days. He sighed and opened the bottle, deciding to allow himself to be bribed this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe that I wrote a Mokona committing a crime out of spite and love for her family.


	6. Smiles (Day 4 - Fai)

He had never smiled before Celes.

Among the snow and the corpses and the cold and the loneliness there was no place for joy. After all, that had been the price for their birth. Sinful existences like theirs couldn’t be allowed to be happy. And for the longest time, he stubbornly refused to believe it. It couldn’t be their fault that they were born the way they were, right?

_Could it?_

And after Fei Wang appears and he makes that wrong,  _sinful_  choice and Fai is dead and it’s his fault, he realizes that his uncle had been right all along, and cowardly, sinful things like him don’t deserve to be happy.

Ashura’s is the first smile he sees in years (Except it isn’t. His uncle had smiled too, while droving a sword across his neck and reminding him for the last time that it was their their his fault) and it looks perfect, immaculate, and something else he doesn’t recognize.

The rest of the people also smile, but their smiles are different, warmer. Ashura’s smile is also warm, and so are his words and his gestures and he doesn’t deserve it, but there’s still that detail he can’t pinpoint. It bugs him a bit, but he tries to ignore it.

People smile at him all the time in the castle. But usually they’re followed by saddened glances. He supposed that no matter the place, he’s still a bad omen.

It’s not until a little girl with the warmer smile he had ever seen tells him that he should try smiling back that he actually tries to make one.  

It feels weird, and tiring and wrong. But it works. And when Ashura smiles brightly at him for making it, tells him that his smile could heal even if he just can do magic mean to hurt ( _cursed_ ), he understands what that something else was.

He wonders what had happened to a kind person like Ashura for his smiles to be artificial too.

He tries smiling more often. He practices how to move his lips upwards just enough to be friendly. And it works. People keep smiling at him, but now they last longer. People start approaching him more. Warm words and kind gestures where before there had been wary glances.

Ashura had said his smiles could heal, and he still wasn’t sure it was true, but what he had noticed is that smiles could be a key.

He gets better at it, with time. He learns how to make his eyelids more open, how to fake that shine that seemed to come natural to everyone else. His speech changes too, honeyed tones and fake pleasantries suddenly get him further than he ever thought they would. The muscles of his mouth get sore, which doesn’t seem to be a normal occurrence for everyone else, even though they also smile all the time. He wonders if natural ones just weight less. He supposes he wouldn’t know either way.

When years pass, he starts to think that maybe there isn’t that much of a difference between his smile and the others. After all, Ashura’s also are always the tiniest bit artificial, and the tiniest bit sad, but he must mean them, right? (He doesn’t want to think the opposite)

Ashura smiles at him when he tells him that as a payment for what all he has done for him, Fai should protect Celes, no matter what.

Ashura smiles at him; covered in blood, teeth and claws bared, standing above his dead subjects; when he tells him he has to keep his promise and protect Celes from him.

It is no surprise that he chooses the coward way out again. Is the only thing he knows how to do, after all. Let the people he loves down and run. He smiles, after he’s done and Ashura is sleeping and he has broken a promise again (- _we will go. The two of us together_ -), he realizes he had been wrong.

When everyone else smiled, it was an invitation, a window to their selves. His smiles have never been anything but shields.

……

His first real smile happened during one of those odd times where his guard went down without him noticing.

And damn, there was almost no window for him to let his guard down. Not with the kids with their kind words and curious questions, asked with smiles so bright and honest he sometimes couldn’t look at them for long without feeling burned. Even less with Kurogane’s keen and suspicious eyes on him most of the time. He knows the grumpy ninja who never smiles is the person he has to be the most wary of. He wonders if Kurogane knows he’s supposed to be his enemy too, or he’s just that perceptive. He guesses it is the latter, as the he doesn’t seem the type to give anyone the benefit of the doubt.

The point is, there’s something he must do, so he shouldn’t let his guard down. He can’t get close to them. (He’s a living curse, after all)

He had never anticipated it would be this  _hard_.

Is not like he doesn’t try. But, despite his best efforts, some people are made of sun and warmth and you can’t help to be drawn to them. Both Sakura and Syaoran are so determined and kind and hard-working, facing their hopeless situation with kind,  _meant_ smiles. He couldn’t help but want to see them succeed, even though he knows their lives are doomed from the start.

Mokona was, like all magical familiars, designed to be friendly. This fact didn’t help much in growing attached to her though. He knew the same fact applied to Chii, but he was fond of her despite it.

And in regards of Kurogane…he didn’t want to think much about that.

He likes to pretend it is just lust. The man is so insanely handsome, after all. With his ripped figure and his piercing wine red eyes that he could look at for hours if it wasn’t so dangerous. It’s safer to think that he’s just horny and lonely.

He doesn’t want to think in how his eyes linger on his powerful form wherever they’re on a battle, how his whole self his so truthful and  _real_ , how he only smiles either viciously before cutting through enemies or when he looks at Syaoran nailing a new sword technique or Sakura jumping at the chance to help someone and he thinks no one can see him.  He’s strong and centered and he just seems so  _sure_ of whom he is and what he wants, he can’t help to be drawn to him too.

And there’s the tiniest part of him that still lingers on the false hope that maybe, just maybe, he can allow himself some selfish satisfaction. He’s already a sinful thing, so, how much could it change things if he sinned a bit more?

The crack happens while in The Black Cat’s café, after Sakura collapsed from overworking herself in her fragile state, driven by her ever-growing desire to help their little odd group. It’s not the first time he has thought this, and it most likely won’t be the last, but the Princess does not deserve this sad, hopeless narrative fate has locked her into.

He really admires her. How she holds herself whole even when so many parts of her are missing. She’s travelling in foreign lands, with people she doesn’t know, and a person that must make her heart ache but cannot be allowed to know why; with no memories of who she is, and yet she endures. Even as a shadow of her old self, she’s still so kind and energetic and genuine.

Is not until he’s tucking her in the café’s large couch that he realizes he had been smiling. He touches it with his finger, surprised. There it is, small, tainted by sadness and completely unplanned. It becomes artificial again the second he realizes what he’s doing, his face turning dark.

He can’t allow himself this

_(but what if he already does?)_

What happens to them shouldn’t be his problem. He has something he must do.

_(They deserve better than him anyway)_

But as he goes back to finish doing the dishes, he can’t help but think of how for the first time his mouth hadn’t felt heavy at all.

…..

He slips up more often, as the five of them spend more time together.

He gets closer and closer to them and he just can’t make it  _stop._ His smiles feel less and less like practiced motions and more and more like a real feeling.  And the worst thing is that he himself doesn’t realize it until Kurogane points it out to him in Piffle.  And he slips there too, although differently, in that way only Kurogane seems to be capable of generate. That slip where his smile cracks and his eyes widen and he suddenly feels so very naked and vulnerable in front of the ninja’s keen eyes.

(He wonders why he doesn’t just try and kill him already, or at least confront him about if he’s so sure he’s into something. Then again, he supposes he’s not the only one who has been making sacrifices for the kids lately)

Is not until Tokyo where his life reminds him exactly why he should have learnt not to get close to people anymore.

He once again made a choice out of his own will, and it all went to hell for it. He knew. He knew the kid’s soul was long gone by that point, that it was useless. But the kid was bright and kind and so much more of his own person as a clone than he ever was as himself. He didn’t deserve to lose his soul in front of the Princess’ helpless eyes.

He suddenly feels younger again and he’s choosing to let everyone suffer in exchange of keeping Fai, he’s choosing to make Ashura sleep even as his hands are covered in Valerians’ blood. And now, as a chooses, yet again, to fruitlessly help a kid doomed to be a tool of evil; he wonders if his tendency to help lost causes his just another face of that false hope of his.

And now, with an eye missing and a stubborn, kind, dumb ninja is paying  a high price for saving his useless sinful life, he thinks that it’s true that no good deed goes unpunished.

They make him drink the vampire blood and now Kurogane has thrown his life away for another lost cause and he’s  _livid._ Why can’t he just let him die? And he suddenly realizes he knows why, and is the same reason he’s been letting himself get carried away with the nicknames and the jokes, why he’s been trying so hard for Kurogane to hate him. Why his smiles have been getting more and more light around him and the very reason he’s so mad about this.

He has  _fallen_ for him.

And what’s worse, he thinks that Kurogane has too.

(This is own fault)

As he recovers, he thinks that it’s time to try and reverse the damage done. His smiles have gotten him in so much more trouble than it’s worth. For once in his life, it is time to drop some of the pretense. The other Syaoran is here, so they’re closer to the end of it all anyway. They really are all doomed, he thinks bitterly, so what’s the point in getting more close to them than he already has?

It would only hurt more in the long haul otherwise. (For the others or for him he doesn’t know)

He needs to distance himself soon, and he needs to start now. And he thinks he knows exactly how, this time around.

So, when Kurogane comes to check on him, he sits, looks straight at him, closes his eyes and gives him the brightest, biggest smile he has ever produced.

“ _Good morning, Kurogane”_

He feels a bitter satisfaction at Kurogane’s shocked,  _hurt_ expression. “ _Fuck you”_ he thinks, “ _I’m sorry_ ” he feels, conveying the same thing. He supposes that just as much as it can be shielding; if used well, a smile can be a weapon too.

He doesn’t smile again after that.

…

Is not until some worlds, and what feels like a lifetime of suffering, that he smiles at Kurogane again.

He’s sitting right outside the room where Kurogane is still recovering from his last sacrifice to save his life. He’s, quite honestly, a complete mess, but not in the way he’s used to be. A lot has happened. All his life has been manufactured specifically to turn him into a tool. His love and guilt have been used to manipulate him since he was a kid.

He should probably feel really bitter and mad, but to be honest, he just feels so  _free_ it’s overwhelming.

Because now, for the first time, he considers again the question he had asked himself back in the Valley, and it looks like the answer may be different. He’s not cursed, he  _has been_ cursed. He hadn’t betrayed Fai, they made it look like he had. And maybe he’s not a living sin, and it was just decided he was. That doesn’t make him a monster. A fool, perhaps. A white piece made to play for the black side.  

It didn’t take his guilt away, and it didn’t erase the things he  _had_ done, but being a fool was so much better than being a monster. A fool may have fucked up, but he can do better. He had a chance to redeem. A chance to live.

He thinks back to the ninja sleeping meters away from him, and how he seemed to have always thought he was worthy of redemption. It was really like Kurogane, to stubbornly believe in a person who had lost faith on himself long, long ago. He finally lets his mind entertain the fact that he loves this man, and lets himself breath. This was fine. He really didn’t deserve his love, and he still didn’t fully believe he’s supposed to be that happy yet, but he allows himself to dream.

After all, if there’s something Kurogane has proved, is that even the most carefully planned plan of evil and fate can be cracked if one just  _loves_  enough.

Though, he has learned that first from Sakura, before he even realized what it meant. He thinks of her hands on his neck, hugging him goodbye like he hadn’t stabbed her seconds ago. Telling him ‘ _sorry_ ’ like she had ever done anything wrong. That girl who had believed in him way before everyone else, and who had continued to believe in him after she learnt who he was.

He may be able to make himself worthy of Kurogane’s love. But Sakura’s faith in him is something he will never be able to live up for. There’s only so much atonement one can do.

When Kurogane awakes, he makes sure to punch him square in the face first thing. Because all is good and he will forever be grateful but he’s a stubborn asshole, and a hypocrite one at that. He would do the same if Fai or the kids tried the crazy shit he pulled, so he supposes the man knows he kind of deserves it.

“ _That’s payback, Kuro-sama”_

While Kurogane his telling him off with the biggest grin on his face, he realizes he’s smiling too. It’s small, and it doesn’t quite reach his eyes all the way, but it makes his chest feel lighter.

At that moment, with both smiling like idiots even as doom is behind the corner, he thinks that maybe smiles  _do_ heal after all.


	7. (Accidental) Fatherhood (Day 5 - Kurogane)

He was not, in any shape or form, a father. No matter what the idiot mage or the white bun impllied.

He looked after Syaoran and Sakura, sure. But they were fourteen year-olds, thrown into a dangerous and difficult quest with no clear answers and for something it was beyond their control. He didn’t want to be traveling dimensions either, but he at least had brought it into himself. He was getting out of control, or at least Tomoyo hime believed he was, so she kicked him out to do some soul-searching outside. He didn’t know what the mage’s deal was, but he seemed to be on the same boat as him, and nevertheless he was still an adult.

He found it to be quite disrespectful to the kids themselves: they were capable, hardworking and brave. They did not need to be babied. What they could use, however, was some indications in the right direction sometimes.

The kid was a natural fighter, but he couldn’t rely on his body forever, specially in more serious fights. So it made sense that he started teaching him to wield a sword. It would help getting him out of trouble, and it would increase the numbers on a fight, giving the mage refused to fight seriously no matter the circumstances.

The princess had taken him by surprise though. After the first few worlds he had assumed she’ll stay inactive for most of the trip, but she had quickly caught up with things after a few feathers. She was weakened by the missing feathers, but she did the best she could give with the little energy and agency she still had. She reminded him of his own princess, and that made protecting her very easy for him. 

And besides, the mage is not the one to talk about his relationship with the kids. After all, it’s Fai who’s always encouraging and looking after those two. He tries to stay detached to them, but he can see the advice he gives the Syaoran, the constant encouragement he gives to Sakura, the soft, sad smiles he has sometimes when he looks at them. He’s making changes for them, and he doesn’t even realize it. So maybe the mage should stop projecting his own surrogate dad issues on him.

It doesn’t occur to him until later on, but although he’s still no father, he kinda  _is_ an authority figure to these two. Both of them listen and respect his advice and opinions, and even his orders to stay put even though he has no authority over them besides being in the same interdimentional trip. The kids look up to him, and it freaks him a bit out but he gets it. Syaoran’s an orphan, Sakura has vague pieces of memory of her actual family at best, so he —and the mage— are the only adult figures they have right now, so it makes sense that even though those adult figures are a bad-tempered ninja with anger issues and a ridiculous but shady man-child mage they would think “could be worse” and look up to them anyway.

Then Outo happens and he discovers exactly what kind of person Syaoran’s last mentor was, and he decides the kid needs good adult figures a lot more than he had originally thought. He still felt like he wasn’t exactly a role-model, but he was definitely better than that dude.

He keeps training Syaoran and sees him get better and better with the sword; he looks proudly from the screens as Sakura wins the Piffle race; he reassures the kid that he doesn’t need to worry about the things he has seen in the book from Lecourt, even as he still feels off from having someone reach deep between his memory. Fair enough, he’s getting far more attached to them than he should but, they’re good kids, he can’t help but wanting them to suced.

He doesn’t realize exactly how much the kids mean to him until they reach Tokyo.

It’s not until the Princess inhales sharply in her sleep just to stop breathing altogether seconds after. He feels an special kind of dread as he approaches the reservoir with an unconscious, still non-breathing princess who disappears seconds after entering. He sees the kid, or this thing in the body of the kid, holding an unconscious and bloody Fai and he feels horror take in as he see the kid’s right eye turn  _blue_ —

He realizes Syaoran is gone, and maybe it’s too late for anything now. He charges at him, but he doesn’t think he could go to far, even as dangerous as Syaoran has gotten now. He sees helplessly as another Syaoran appears, sees them fight without intervening because the wizard is his priority, and he has no idea who is the friend and who is the foe now (he doesn’t want to entertain the thought that maybe both are the foe)

And suddenly Syaoran’s gone, his look-alike with the symbol of his mother’s killer on his clothing is still here, and Sakura has taken off alone on a dangerous mission. He honestly believes she’ll make it back alive, but waiting is killing him. Waiting for the mage to wake up after the vampire transformation, with this new kid who’s walking on tiptoes around him, with an anguished Mokona who’s still looking to him like he can fix everything, waiting for the Princess to return.

As the world feels like its crashing down on him again and he can just  _wait_ , he comes to terms with his feelings, bitterly and hopelessly. He loves them, the kids, the mage, the white bun.

After Fai wakes up and his full name is the first thing out of his mouth; after Sakura comes back, bloodied and broken; after he sees the effort this other kid puts on filling the space Syaoran left like he doesn’t believe they’ll allow him to be is own person, he thinks that he has never felt less like a father in his whole life.

Fathers were supposed to help their kids, to protect them from harm. And he couldn’t —can't— do even that for these two. Syaoran’s gone, his soulless self causing chaos he would be so ashamed and guilty to be responsible of if he was still himself. And he knew Sakura was planning something but he still couldn’t stop  _that_  from happening and she’s gone too. The Syaoran that now travels with them is a good kid himself, but he can’t stop comparing him with the one they lost even though he knows is unfair on him. He’s so full of guilt and grief but he doesn’t know how to help him either.

So yeah, he doesn’t feel like a father, because they all deserve better parental figures than these broken disasters he and the wizard are, who can’t even help them when they need to.

The battle against Fei Wang finally comes, and once again the kids are burdened with the responsibility of winning the battle once and for all while he and the mage look from the sidelines. As he sees Syaoran and Sakura again, and realizes he doesn’t know if this would be the last time he ever will, he decides to be honest with them for once.

“  _don’t you dare disappear on us like that again_ ” he yells at them, telling them he’s going to kick their asses later. They smile, touched, and he knows they understood what he actually meant.

He lets the fixing of time and space in their capable hands, but kills Fei Wang himself. That’s something he can definitely help with, and he hopes he made the revenge worth for the 5 of them.

And then its over, and the kids made it. The clones are now missing though, and Syaoran can’t ever stay in the same place for long. He, Fai and Mokona decide to share his burden, traveling with him, and Sakura does the same by staying behind. They really have been through a lot, and it still isn’t over, but he’s so proud of them.

Still, he is going to keep looking after them, because although he is miles away from a father, these kids mean so much to him.


	8. Day 7 and 8 - Alternate Universe/OTP

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> soulmate AU where you have the name of your soulmate written on your wrist (and also, soulmates work differently in every world.)

It’s not that Kurogane doesn’t believe in soulmates per se, but the thought of having it decided since the moment you’re born is just ridiculous to him. 

Sure, their parents had each other’s names tattooed in their wrists and they worked out as perfectly as one would expect, but that wasn’t the case for everyone.

It used to be a sacred thing in his world, back in the old times. But after time, people started realizing that things didn’t always work out between the linked names. Some people where soulmates meant to be for only a limited amount of time; others were soulmates in a destructive, violent way. And a small, unlucky few had a soulmate who didn’t have their name in their wrist. Also, the whole thing seemed to work on the basis that you were only able to fall in love once, which was bullshit on itself.

So, when his soulmate’s name appears in his right arm, written in a language he doesn’t even know, let alone understand; it’s not so hard for him to believe the system has botched it again.

Tomoyo doesn’t think the same, and is always trying to find where the language is from, and what it means. He doesn’t share the enthusiasm, but he lets her study his wrist anyway. Hime seems to think it’s a language from another world, and Kurogane sighs, not wanting to take part on that fairly-tale shit . He wonders how does she like the soulmate thing so much, as for what he’s gathered about her over the years, her soulmate deal is fucked too.

He learns, after he’s banished and he finds himself travelling dimensions, not to his surprise, that soulmates have different ways of identifying one another in the different worlds. 

Syaoran and Sakura had the first thing they said to each other written on their wrists. But as a part of their price, Sakura’s has been erased. He can see the pain in Syaoran’s eyes as she asks him about his soulmate, or when she wonders why she doesn’t have any words in her arm. These marks just make things more complicated than they need to be, Kurogane has never been more sure of it.

Fai says his world didn’t have soulmate marks at all. Although that must not be all of it, considering how much he avoids the subject. He’s particularly interested in his mark, though. The mage says he doesn’t really know the language, but it is vaguely familiar. He always looks kind of defeated when trying to figure it out, looking at the foreign words like he hates the damn thing just as much as Kurogane sometimes.

Kurogane didn’t believe in soulmates, so it’s no surprise that when he starts to fall for he mage, he doesn’t really dwell on it and just lets things be. Falling in love with Fai was complicated enough without the soulmate factor, thank you very much. 

He starts to wonder if maybe his soulmate mark is not so failed after all. He knows that, despite his best efforts, he’s absolutely drawn to the mage. He didn’t understand why at first, but now as he sees him, in those quiet moments where his annoying walls went the tinniest bit down, he starts to understand. He’s, behind the pretenses and the fake smiles, truly a good person. He hadn’t believed so at first, with the way he lied constantly, but character is not something you can fake forever. Just as he could tell if a person was evil even though they acted all nice and proper, you could tell when someone had good intentions at heart, no matter how little they believed it themselves.

He was beautiful and immaculate, broken and torn, elusive and lonely. He wanted to get past all of his walls, to know the real him behind those tick curtains of lies. He was completely, inevitably drawn to him, and wasn’t that what a soulmate was supposed to feel like?

Fai hates himself, that’s obvious by now. So he wonders if the language written in his wrist is not just “familiar” to him, and maybe it is its own. He wouldn’t put him past the mage, to lie about something like that. His theory gets debunked in Lecourt, when Fai uses his magic and in it were displayed words and symbols completely different from the ones in his hand. He can’t help but feel extremely disappointed.

Shit happens after that, and suddenly silly things like soulmate marks are the least of his problems. More important things to worry about include being the beverage of a vampire who refuses to talk to him or even look at him in the eye just because he had the nerve to try and save his fucking life. He loved the bastard, he was way past that, but he could be a handful sometimes.

And then he learns what had been of Fai’s life after the trip, and he understands a lot of things. He’s still mostly a moron in his opinion, but the desire of saving those who are dear to him is a very noble reason for doing very questionable things, he supposes. 

He interrupts his last self-scarifying attempt and doesn’t even think twice as he cuts his left arm off to save him. The things he does for this man.

They’re back on Nihon, and he can’t almost believe that coming home again is the last thing on his mind at the moment. Hell, with all that has happened, he hasn’t even processed he has fewer limbs since the last time he has been here either. He has understood what strength means, though, or more of how it doesn’t mean shit if you can’t protect the ones you love with it. Sometimes, no matter how strong you were, things are just beyond your control, and the mage (and the kids) were living proof of that. That’s quite enough to swallow from a night. 

After Tomoyo leaves him with Ginryuu and a peace of mind he hasn’t had in decades, he sees Fai from the first time since all this happened (if with “all this” he means since the escape from Celes or since Tokyo, he isn’t really sure) He had never been happier to hear those stupid nicknames, or to be punched in the face, but the mage had a knack to bring the weirdest sides of him,

They sit in a comfortable but eager silence after that, both with so many things on their minds that they don’t know where to start. Fai looks at his right hand, a wistful look on his face.

“So what happens if you happened to cut your right arm?” He asks, looking pointedly at the foreign name still written on it.

“Who knows. This soulmate deal isn’t very disabled-friendly.” 

Fai laughs, softly and genuinely, before his face turns contemplative again. He has been very quiet, enjoying to be himself for once. Kurogane takes in the whole new expectrum of emotions he’s letting trough, silently fascinated by how good sincerity looks on his face. 

“You know, when we were banned to the tower…well, let’s say the land of the sinners didn’t exactly promote things as sacred as soulmate marks.” Fai started after a silent while. “I don’t even remember what mark we had in Valeria, we were gone long before we could even learn about it, let alone have it.”

“Then, in Celes, it wasn’t a literal mark but more of a feeling, you would see you soulmate and simply know they were the one. But I wasn’t from that country, not really, so I assumed it didn’t work for me.” 

“You aren’t really missing much, they’re not as effective as one would think” Kurogane tells him, looking at his own mark. And then, after a second, he asks “When you said the language looked familiar, what did you actually mean?”

Fai swallowed, looking fixedly ahead. “I’m not really sure but, I know I have seen it before. The more I spent time with you the more I thought about it and now that I look at it…i think it may be…”

“…Valerian?” He completes, suddenly putting pieces in place.

Fai nods. Neither of them says anything, but he knows they’re thinking the same thing. 

“You’re right, Kuro-sama, these things are annoying” Fai laughs, looking relieved. 

“Can’t believe the damn thing was right after all” He doesn’t miss the way Fai’s eyes widen at the casualty of his confession. 

“I may be wrong, I never actually learned Valerian.” His face fells a little, his expression thoughtful and sad, but he takes control of it quickly. “ I could be taking advantage of your fucked up soulmark for my own selfish reasons, kuro-rin.”

“Look, if we are wrong, I’ll let you know. Meanwhile I will have to stick with you.” He tells him, leaning towards him and lifting his chin up.

The kiss his quick and almost chaste, and it startles Fai. The startling doesn’t last him long though, and suddenly they’re kissing again, and it’s not long before they stop talking altogether..


	9. Day 14 - Justice

~~~~

When he was younger, Kurogane had thought that justice was just a fancier, better received form of revenge. Because, where is the line drawn? Both, at the core, have the same end: To get back at the people who wronged you.

Revenge is violent, bloodied, making the other pay with our own hands. It is adrenaline and rage fueling your sword to cut through your enemies’ defenses. Retributions more proportionated to the pain caused than the crime committed.

Justice, as his father had explained to him before, is less personal than that. It is supposed to be fair. Is not something you can decide of your own, there are people who can take care of that. If a group of bandits raids your store, you’re supposed to alert the ninjas’ troops. Leave the justice to them. All people should be treated and judged equally, and for that reason they should be judged by a third party with no emotional relation with the cause. Kurogane doesn’t understand why he seems to be one of the small few who think that’s as far from fair as it can get.

A person can kill another and just go to jail. But if he kills ten people, he now can be given death penalty. So, if his life is worth ten others, where is the justice in that? If you had killed him after the first, you would have spared other 9 lives. His father just shakes his head when he tells him that, says that’s not how society works, and that he will understand the difference when he’s older.

Some years later, when his town is reduced to ashes and blood and death; when he sees his mother being stabbed by a shadow behind a portal wearing a symbol he doesn’t recognize but can’t possibly forget; when a black, merciless creature spits his father’s arm in front of him, the sword he used to protect his people still between his gasp; he understands.

Justice simply doesn’t exist.

Justice is supposed to be fair. His mother has been murdered by someone,  _something_ , hidden behind a magic spell, for reasons he doesn’t know. Without a priestess to defend the borders, the demons roamed in, and they killed everything on their path. How do you apply justice to a faceless murderer from somewhere else, or to a monster that has no mind, no conscience, just hunger and the need to kill kill  _kill_? His entire village has been whipped out of existence, how are you supposed to even try to make that even?

Justice is just for the cowards who can’t even revenge themselves and need someone else to do it.

At that moment, covered in blood and rage and so much  _grief_ , he decided that the only thing that was left was revenge. So, he took ginryuu, allowed his vision to go red and let the revenge consume him as he launched himself against the nearest demon.

After the battle is over and the young priestess closes his mother’s eyes at last, he surrenders to the tears building up inside him and decides that revenge was never supposed to feel good, it just had to be right.

* * *

He expends the rest of his days in Nihon training. Preparing.  He trains and trains, lets his strength grow. The rage he felt all those years ago in his rampage against the demons never really left; a part of it stayed with him. It’s like a raw, lingering, burning feeling under his skin, running constantly through his veins. Like an especial, constant kind of anger he hasn’t –won’t – let go of. Instead, he lets the flames fuel him against every enemy, every block in his path.

He is appointed as Tomoyo’s bodyguard, and he does a damn good job of it. He tears down enemies, traitors and assassins with increasing ease and glee. Every kill fuels more and more the fire in his veins, and lets him wanting more. He needs to be  _stronger._ Stronger than he was; stronger than he is now; stronger than he will be later.  There’s someone out there, powerful enough to open a portal, to drive a sword through his mother’s chest, to let the demons eat away his life; who he needs to bring down.

He pointedly ignores the looks Tomoyo gives him. It’s the same look she had years ago, when she brought him back from his cage and despair and rage. It drives him mad. He did not become one of the best damn ninjas this country had to offer just to be looked at like a he’s still a child lost in grief holding a sword too big for him.

(Tomoyo looks at him not with disappointment, like he choose to believe, but with concern. That just pisses him off more. The anger inside him has always been created and maintained by himself, yet she always worries it will burn him down to ashes.)

He should have learnt that he can’t just ignore the Princess for long. The disappointed looks eventually turn into something more as she sends him away ( _banishes_  him, like a traitor) to “learn the true meaning of strength”

He screams as the magic drags him away, telling her he will be back soon. He knows damn well what strength looks like, and it is fire and blood and the shadows of the demons painting the sky black; it’s the rush of adrenaline before cutting of one, two, ten enemies.

It’s having the power to destroy a whole city, to kill and maim without even stepping away from a damn portal. Pure strength in the hands of a coward, and he plans to put an end to it. He will get revenge for his parents, his city.

……………….

These two kids that now travel with him do nothing but cement his thoughts about justice for good.  

With him traveled a boy burdened with the choice of saving the girl he loves, with all the danger and sorrow it entails, on exchange of his relationship with her. A girl whose memories where scattered away, and she will never be able to get them back together like they were before, never remembering who the boy who gives everything for her is and why it is so important to her. Why? Because and outside force said so. If the situation is the fault of someone else, why should these kids pay the price?

Because fate is an apathetic, impartial entity that couldn’t give a shit about context or distribution of guilt, that’s why. And they had tried to tell him that justice was supposed to be that, each held accountable for their own part of the mess, paying up their own karma. There isn’t such a thing as coincidence, sure, but that doesn’t mean fate isn’t kind of arbitrary as well.

He focuses his interest on revenge, since now that he’s travelling through worlds, the chances of finding portal guy are higher. It’s a good time to test his strength in new environments too.

He wonders how the hell Tomoyo plans for him to learn the “true” meaning of strength on this trip; when everything he sees just solidify his own conception of it. Strength is protection, is safety. A tool to ensure your loved ones don’t get fucked by outside magical forces, or that you’re not forced to run away from your world to never come back by whatever reason (he also wonders if the mage should be looking for revenge, or if he’s hiding for someone else’s)

* * *

His thoughts come back to the concept of justice after Tokyo happens.

Or more accurately, his thoughts on  _revenge_  start to change. He did not believe himself to be so short-sighted a man to see problems and people as black and white issues. But he couldn’t help but feel his insides twitch when that other kid showed up, the symbol of his mother’s killer on the front of his clothes. But even so, he would have reacted worse, not so long ago.

He thinks Fai may have something to do with that. This self-sacrificing, self-hating moron who has been trying so  _hard_  to be his enemy since this damn thing started. A coward who’s running away from whatever his holding him back, but also a guy ready to break his vow against magic twice in less than 2 days in order to save these people he tried so hard to not get attached to.

He thinks also of Syaoran, whose soul got literally stripped away from him by an outside force. Who it now seems had always been created just to advance the plans of the man he was trying to fight against. A tool who has been set up to automatic, his will taken away.

And Syaoran, the new one. The person behind Syaoran’s right eye. He used to think of him as an enemy, but now, as he sees him apologies to him for a symbol he didn’t choose to wear; he realizes he had been wrong.

Maybe their situation wasn’t about sides and enemies; and instead, like the people of this world without resources, they were just victims on different sides of the same evil.

Maybe the mage really hides something twisted, and maybe both the brats are just tools of the man he’s trying to kill. Doesn’t mean it’s really their fault. The real monster here is the guy who owns the symbol, the magic and the portals. He’s the one his revenge should be focus on.

What is  _just_ , on the other side, is allowing these two to live. Make sure they don’t pay for someone else’s sins. He gives up his blood, pays the price to keep the mage alive. He decides to go forward, try to both kill the bastard who did all this and help the Princess get Syaoran back.

He starts to think that maybe revenge and justice can be two separated concepts after all.

(The mage calls him kurogane after he wakes up, and it feels like a cut in his heart. Even if it exists, he wonders if justice can exist if everyone has a completely different definition of what is right.)

* * *

He realizes that if there’s someone who understands justice in this group, it must be Sakura.

She takes a stab to the heart at the hands of a good friend, to change a future even more grim, and Kurogane starts to understand better. It was no fair thing what she had to do, but it was done with a clear, brighter end in mind. It wasn’t fair, none of the choices they all had to make were, but it was a price to pay to set things right.

The princess has always been a contagious force in everyone in the group, especially to the mage, so it is no surprise that this fateful event leaves him both more suicidal than ever  _and_  spurs him into action at the same time.

So they pay the price to go search for her, and they end up in Fai’s home world. Is there where they learn his story, and it’s the most unfair and cruel thing he has seen in his life. Fate really was an already written tale, the problem was that some had the godamn devil behind the pen and paper.  A devil with a red symbol, and powerful enough to write fate itself.

He thinks he finally gets the difference clearly.

Revenge was a personal thing. Get back at those who have hurt you. Thought like that, they all have the same person to get revenge on. A man to kill worth five revenges. That’s where the deal ended.

Justice was setting things right. Even if things couldn’t get back at how they were, it was a compromise, a price to pay to ensure things will get better eventually. A far away but steady goal you had to work hard for. As far as he is concerned, justice and revenge are still the same thing for him, but the same could not be said about his companions:  Justice for the kids would be them being finally able to exist together like they belong, all of them. Justice for the mage would be finally taking control of his own life, after a lifetime of having his fate written and altered without a way for him to stop it.

One was fueled by anger against your enemies, the other by love towards those important to you.

Justice is different for all of them, but he’s ready to help them all achieve their own. He swears he will kill Fei Wang Reed the moment he is able to, avenge the lives of his family, old and new, and all the people the guy has clearly fucked over.

But when he hears Tomoyo’s voice on his head, telling him what he should do if he really wants the mage to survive, he cuts his arm off and pulls him out of the dying world without thinking twice. Fai shouldn’t die as a victim of his puppeteer’s plans, he wants him to live, to be with them as they face the bastard together, to finally get to avenge his brother, his lost life, to stay with him after that. So he sacrifices his strength as an act of love. Of justice.  


End file.
